Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Fighting For Your Life

A friend of mine says, "Trouble comes in bunches sometimes, like bananas." Yes...sometimes it seems that way. Right here, right now I'm going to say that I'm blessed and what trouble has come to me has often been of my own creation. Our choices make a lot of difference in what happens in life.....but sometimes things happen without any 'help' or 'hindrance' from us.

One of those things is cancer. It seems to make its own choices about who is hit with it. It's one of those awful circumstances that a person has no control over, except to decide to deal with it the best way possible and fight every step of the way. It isn't fair that it's come along and chosen that person. Right now, I know of a mother with a preschooler, an early grade school student, a high school student and a college aged daughter. This is her second fight for her life. What's fair about that?

There's another who is older than I am...she has recently been diagnosed with third stage pancreatic cancer. This is a tough pill to swallow for her, having dealt with many surgeries and serious illnesses in the past. Her daughter is attempting to meet her needs and still work to keep the bills paid. What's fair about that?

Now, today I've seen that a friend's granddaughter, aged 14 yrs...just starting her life, really, has been diagnosed with a cancer. While there's certainly nothing fair about this, there is hope, according to the doctors, that treatments will be successful in taking care of this one.

Sometimes life brings things that aren't fair, and THAT is the one certainty in life. I don't think I can think of a single family I know who has not had to deal with cancer in some way. It may have been themselves, or a relative or a close friend, but it's been someone. We pray for those who are fighting; we suffer with them, but on a level far removed from their own suffering. It's the best we can do...to ask for God to be merciful and heal as these fight for their lives.